When Erika Wennerstrom tended bar in Cincinnati, she didn’t just sling drinks.

The upstart artist absorbed music from live in-house bands and selections from afternoon patrons
plunking endless quarters into the jukebox.

As singer-guitarist for her ensemble, Heartless Bastards, Wennerstrom would pass out demo
recordings on the job “to anyone” who might help forge a connection (“I went through three CD
burners”).

Of course, on the night when her outfit landed an opening slot for the Black Keys at the
now-shuttered Southgate House across the river in Newport, Ky., drummer Patrick Carney asked for a
copy after the show.

No luck.

“We actually had done really well and sold out,” said Wennerstrom, now 35. “We didn’t have one
to give him.”

When her band later trekked to Akron to perform before “so few people in the bar that the owner
said: ‘I’ll just pay you; you don’t have to play,’ ” Carney, a nearby resident at the time,
happened to be there. He linked the band with Mississippi-based Fat Possum Records, then the label
for the Black Keys.That helped her scrappy ensemble ascend to bigger stages and earn praise from
Rolling Stone (“a small-town band who are ready to show the big city no mercy”) and
The New York Times, which called Wennerstrom “a voice as big and lonesome as the
prairie."

In 2007, at the end of a long romantic relationship with bass player Mike Lamping, she moved to
Austin, Texas, where a new lineup formed to release two more albums — including the fourth and
latest,
Arrow.

“The creative process is definitely still the same,” said Wennerstrom, who with her band will
perform tonight in the Basement. “I definitely think I got a little more of a country influence
since I’ve lived here. I feel like most of my influences on this album have been with me a long
time.

“It’s just kind of a combination of so many of them.”

On
Arrow, some parallels are evident. The glam-rock of her beloved T. Rex shows up on
Got To Have Rock and Roll. A longtime favorite, Thin Lizzy’s cover of
Whiskey in the Jar, spurred Wennerstrom to add more acoustic guitar to the project.

Other insights came through diverse artists ranging from Ennio Morricone to Nancy Sinatra.

Wennerstrom’s upbringing in Dayton first turned her on to low-fi Gem City bands that found
national repute — Guided by Voices and the Breeders among them.

She found her distinctive singing voice as a child, however, through her mother’s vinyl records
(Mahalia Jackson’s Christmas album was a particular favorite) and a rotating cast of jazz musicians
that would visit and perform with the Wennerstrom family, many of whom now live in Columbus.

The Bastards’ name stemmed from a multiple-choice trivia question asking the name of Tom Petty’s
backing band.

“We’re all kind of awkward,” she said, with a chuckle. “I thought it sounded tough. I just
wanted to be the opposite of Lilith Fair.”

Awkward, perhaps. What about heartless?

Might she reveal the most callous thing she’s ever done?

Wennerstrom diplomatically dodges the question.

“We’re all human; we’ve all done something that wasn’t cool at some point,” she said. “Off the
top of my head, I can’t think of anything. And I’d probably be too embarrassed to admit it.”